Unburied
by putters1
Summary: Training is tough at the Slayers' Academy in the Cotswolds, England, one year on from Sunnydale's demise. Giles realises it's time to bring out the big guns. Only problem being that Buffy's loving the demonfree life in Rome a little too much.


**Writer's note: This story is written like the premiere to a fictional season eight. It is based around a TV transcript I also wrote, so please excuse the untraditional use of chapters which will frequently include several different 'scenes' in each. The story is loosely based on key information given in 'Angel's season five, and is set one year after the events in the 'Buffy' series finale. With all these rich characters (and yet still more potential for stories), I felt it would be a great foundation to develop my writing style.**

**If you read, could you please review? I love getting critique, and was a bit saddened that my transcript got so few reviews (although I don't blame anything but the format - it's hard to read).**

** Anyway, enough babbling. Here's chapter one:**

* * *

Desperation possessed the businessman as he ran, frightened, down the beaten track. The looming walls of trees on either side of him hid the moonlight, the guide that had led him so safely through the fields. The man stumbled over a fallen branch, but managed to keep his footing as he continued along, frequently glancing over his shoulder. Noticing an absence of movement behind him, he wondered where the people went - the people who had been chasing him for over half an hour through the English countryside. Luckily, he was equipped with an athlete's stamina and a racing adrenaline, but these people were still very tough and persistent, and they weren't about to give up. Whoever they were. Suddenly, one of them jumped down from a tree's bough above. The man startled back in surprise, feeling a gut-wrenching panic. It was the small, blonde one - the most menacing one of the lot. 

"Wh-what do you want from me?" he stammered, observing her every step towards him. She only looked about seventeen. He was sure he could have taken her on had it not been for the weapon she carried, or the killer's smirk she wore. But that didn't matter now. All he wanted was to get out of there as soon as possible.  
"You can't just go around doing this to people!" exclaimed the man, his voice embarrassingly high with fright. "You're one to talk," she dryly replied. Two steps closer, and the man was ready to run again. In the opposite direction he turned, but there stood another girl. A brunette, taller, with a foreign look about her.

And soon arrived yet another girl. In a last clinging attempt, he figured that this last girl, who was obviously the youngest out of all three, would be the easiest hostage should he have to use anyone to escape. This girl wielded what looked like an archaic crossbow in front of her; the second girl took a small crucifix out from her pocket and directed it at him. The man felt a primal, angry, animal instinct now. His fear, in this moment, instantaneously channelled into bloodlust and hate. His face morphed into something inhuman: demonic yellow eyes; a furrowed brow; sharp teeth. A wolf-like growl rippled into the air. It was his time to shine now.

"No, no, no!" intruded a male voice on the scene. Said male walked out from the shadows of the trees to the side, looking agitated. "For the love of Sheba," he said, "the right, Habika! You always go to the right! Every time!" The vampire wasn't at all sure what this meant, and was even more perplexed by the newest arrival himself. He was a nerdish, campy, blonde young man, with an American twang in his accent, and stood there in a pretentious tweed suit, glaring at the last girl to arrive. The girl who had jumped down from the tree quickly piped up.

"She doesn't speak a word of English, Andrew," she said.

"Thanks for the info, princess," he sneered in a feminine tone, "but that's kinda not my problem. H'okay?" The cross-wielding girl put her hands on her hips and stared at this Andrew rather accusingly.  
"Did monsieur Giles not tell you to embrace zee uzzer cultures?"

"Who are you to talk, Frenchy?" he grumbled back. At this, the vampire skid addled as quickly as he could, darting straight between the girls and into the woods. Ducking through the foliage and dodging past the branches, the vampire made with haste as the three teenagers chased after him, tactically splitting up. But he persisted forward as fast as he could. He leapt over a rotting log on the ground; the blonde girl who had been first to jump out at him followed suite not far behind him, but with a turn of the head, he saw her landing sabotaged by an awkwardly situated branch pointing out of the log. She tripped and rolled, leaving the vamp an advantage. Acting on the moment, he slithered between the pines and found a hiding place behind a tree. He pressed himself against it, listening intently for the smallest sound, even the snap of a twig. For what felt like an eternity, he stood rooted to the tree. Then, at a far distance, he heard the French girl's voice.

"Do you think 'e's in zuh graveyard?" she whispered. The vampire creaked his head an inch around the trunk. Through the bushes, he could make out the purple of a girl's sweater as she crept by stealthily, almost militaristically, unconscious of his nearby presence. The vampire brought himself back to his original position, silent and solid, almost blending into the bark. But as he did so, the blonde girl already stood waiting. She had her stake poised, ready to plunge. Wide-eyed and wary, he took hurried steps back.

"Who are you people?" he said, posing the question which had plagued him ever since they had ambushed him in the closest village, a mile away.  
"Us? We're the Slayers," replied the blonde, stating as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh," he said lamely, noticing the unwelcome word 'slayer' and grasping for small hope that it meant something other than he thought, "what's that?"The girl gave a puzzled, patronising grimace with an equally effective tone in her voice.

"The vampire Slayers? Never heard of us? I guess I could do the speech about there being one into each generation, but that's pretty much null and void now," she said. For the second time that night, the vampire found himself faced with speech he simply could not fathom.  
"I-I-I don't understand," he muttered, shaking his head.

"The whole world's full of girls like us now," she said, half-laughing at the thought, "ready to fight, protect, finally use our power. And there's more than enough to go round to kill you, all your friends, and every single vampire on the face of the earth."

This was not news he wanted to hear at all. Horrified, he was certain he would soon die, yet still made petty attempts to scramble away. He came onto new ground, a clearing with uncut grass. The dew splashed at his feet as he twirled around, unsure where to go next. It took him a moment to realise where he was. Gravestones squashed unequally beside each other - a tiny cemetery, the perfect setting for an unspectacular death. The perimeter around the cemetery was another wall of trees - trapped, inescapable. About to surrender, his eye caught just beyond the trees some railings, and behind them an extraordinary, glowing edifice that -

Smack! Before he could register the sight, a blow to the head from behind knocked him to the grass. He didn't dare check to see who the attacker was. He was too busy scrapping at the ground, heading towards the sanctuary just ahead of him.  
"There's no point," came the blonde's evilly bubbly voice, "this place is ours. There's about fifty more of us in there." The vampire's luck was completely out, and he knew it.

"Why?" he thought out loud, not truly caring.  
"Someone got tired of the way things were working. She decided we needed a change." The vampire fell to his knees and closed his eyes, waiting for the end to come. "And personally?" she said, her voice much more adjacent now. He could practically feel her breath on the back of his neck. Though perhaps that was just the shivers trickling down his spine, and the violent lashing of cold air. "I'm all for it."

With a thrusting sound and an indescribable pain filling all his body, the vampire was dust in a heartbeat. The blonde girl edged back with a grin of satisfaction. As she pushed the stake back into her sleeve, Andrew and French girl came to the scene.


End file.
